Lady Cardinals continue to work into postseason

RANDOLPH – Winning has been infrequent but that doesn’t mean the Randolph Lady Cardinals should be taken lightly on a volleyball court.

Last week, the girls battled in numerous matches and stood 3-22 as of Sunday.

Randolph lost to Wynot at the Plainview triangular 2-0 (25-11, 2515) and the hosts 2-0 (25-19, 25-6).

“The girls started the (Wynot) game aggressively but once we made a couple errors, we lost momentum and confidence,” Randolph head coach Lyndsee English said. “Unfortunately, we have a tendency to let errors compound on each other and then we aren’t able to bring ourselves back into the game. We keep talking about learning from our mistakes and moving on but we have to keep our heads up and keep fighting.”

Katarina Greiner led the way with four kills for Randolph and Ella Scott added eight digs.

Against Plainview, Jacey Bartels (seven kills, six assists) and Scott (seven digs) were the highlight performers for Randolph.

Last Thursday Randolph hosted its “Pink Out” night and battled in a grueling four-set encounter and fell short (29-27, 20-25, 26-24, 25-22).

“The girls played one of their best games of the season that night,” English said. “I know that they didn’t get the ‘W’ in but they played hard and I was proud of the way they played. We did have some chances to win some of those close sets but were unable to finish. This was definitely the best game of the season for Jacey and Mabel Ngebeh - both on the outside. Lexi (Backhaus) was setting great on the night and our girls were passing well in the back row.”

Bartels had 13 kills, 10 aces and 24 digs, while Ngebeh added 10 kills; Greiner pitched in with six kills; Scott corralled 27 digs; Taylor Mavis had five kills and Backhaus finished with 36 sets and 11 digs with three aces.

Two days later, the girls opened up Lewis and Clark Conference play and lost to Tri County Northeast 2-0 (25-11, 25-15) with English saying her squad didn’t look ready to play. They then wrapped the day losing to Hartington-Newcastle 2-0 (25-18, 25-19).

“The girls played a lot better in the second game,” English said. “They had more communication and played aggressively but I still felt like we didn’t do well in the front row.”

Bartels (four kills, eight digs), Scott (18 digs) and Backhaus (10 assists) led Randolph’s stats against Hartington-Newcastle.

The team continued conference tournament play Monday against Walthill in Randolph with a win (25-18, 25-16, 23-25, 25-20).

Bartels agreed with her coach that the Osmond match was her team’s best to date.

“Osmond is super scrappy and their serves are amazing,” Bartels said. “The energy of being in Pink Out and everyone was there - all the bleachers were full. There was a lot of people watching us, and the energy has been up, but with it being the seniors’ last home game, I think that also helped. Our minds were connected, and our serves were amazing. I mean, obviously you have hitting errors, but our actual kills that we got outshined the hitting errors. There was no getting upset because we knew we could win. We have six seniors and we want to keep playing.”

Bartels said a lot of the rotational play goes to the underclassmen who continue to battle daily in practice and make things difficult.

“These freshmen keep us on our toes during practice,” she said. “They have beaten us on six on six sometimes just because they’re really scrappy at times. They know that (the seniors) play our hardest, so they want to play their hardest. But then I think they just get really nervous and don’t want to mess up and then over or under play.”

The attitude of the Lady Cardinals continues to stay on high.

“Everyone is really happy about our practices going well,” Bartels said. “It’s just a lot of dumb mistakes coming in to matches. We are just struggling to finish.”